Half of UFC 157’s headliners have strong ties to Olympic grappling, so they were none too pleased at today’s vote to cut wrestling from the games.

“It’s kind of sad,” said co-main event fighter Dan Henderson (29-8 MMA, 5-2 UFC), who meets ex-champ Lyoto Machida (18-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC) at next week’s event. “But I’ve been hearing that being threatened as a possibility for at least 20 years, so hopefully it doesn’t stay that way.”

UFC 157 takes place Feb. 23 at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. The event’s main card airs live on pay-per-view following prelims on FX and Facebook.

“I think it’s just a shame,” she told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “This is the oldest sport in all of the Olympics. In the original Olympics, they had wrestling.”

Rousey and Henderson both represented the U.S. in the Olympics. Rousey won a bronze medal in judo in 2008 while Henderson competed in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1992 and 1996.

The IOC’s vote came as a shock to most in the MMA community, which voiced their displeasure at the move on Twitter and other social-media sites. Wrestling now will be forced to vie for inclusion in the 2020 games against sports such as baseball, karate and wakeboarding.

Rousey and Henderson both found success in MMA through grappling. Rousey’s hallmark throws and armbars have led her to an undefeated record. Henderson, a former two-division champ for the PRIDE organization, is a master at clinching and wrestling opponents.

“The idea that they’re replacing it with golf – I just think if you don’t break a sweat, it’s not a sport,” Rousey said. “It’s a skill.”

Golf, of course, isn’t replacing wrestling. The sport was reinstated for the 2016 games before the IOC decided to nix wrestling from the roster. Rousey, however, isn’t sure whom to point the finger at.

“The only real reason I could think of is maybe just a few countries are overly dominant,” she said. “They start thinking sports out if there aren’t enough countries competing or if one country is winning too much.”

Russia and the U.S. indeed win the most medals in wrestling, but wrestling’s international reach is far broader than other sports such as the pentathlon, which many expected would be cut from a group of 26 core sports under review by the IOC before its decision.

Athletes from 71 countries compete in wrestling while 26 compete in pentathlon. Both sports have roots in the ancient Greek games.

“It’s mind-blowing,” said Yahoo! Sports’ writer Maggie Hendricks, who spoke to MMAjunkie.com Radio about the decision. “The reason why I’m so shocked is because there’s no reason behind it. I’m sure it’s some sort of political thing.”

The main casualties of the vote will be thousands of wrestlers hoping to one day win Olympic gold, she said. The Living the Dream Fund even offered a financial incentive to win the gold: $250,000.

The sport also promotes gender equality.

“The thing that’s been great about wrestling is that it’s been growing both at the men’s and women’s level,” she said. “Women in countries where they have to work really hard to get respect and get noticed as athletes have been able to do that through wrestling. That’s being taken away from them.”

Hendricks pointed wrestling fans to a newly created Facebook page, Save Olympic Wrestling, which now has more than 30,000 “likes,” and recommended they support the sport by going to local events.

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.